Judge Cannon skeptical over whether to gag Donald Trump in secret documents case: report
The judge in Donald Trump's secret documents case in Florida reportedly appeared skeptical Monday over possibly gagging the former president.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon held a hearing in her Fort Pierce, Florida, court on whether to restrict the 45th president's speech by asking for more proof from special counsel Jack Smith to show that his rhetoric inspired threats, according to CNN.
Cannon gave Smith until Wednesday to produce more evidence to help her determine if the gag order was a necessary prophylactic to keep the president in check.
One of the prosecutors plans to provide more substantive proof Tuesday, the outlet reported.
Cannon explained that she seeks to get both prosecutors and the defense to have “adequate opportunity to respond” whenever there is something to prove or disprove the relevance of a gag order in the case.
Trump faces 40 criminal counts related to his hoarding of classified materials that he took with him from the White House when he was defeated in the presidential election.
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The banker boxes filled with sensitive government intel that were housed at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, were repeatedly sought after by the feds to be returned.
Trump, along with his longtime valet, Walt Nauta, and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira all pleaded not guilty to charges of obstructing the government's tries to retrieve the documents.
The effort to impose a gag order went on turbo mode after Trump falsely claimed that President Joe Biden had put his life in jeopardy after the Justice Department authorized agents to use deadly force while searching Mar-a-Lago if they encountered a life-threatening danger.
The boilerplate language granting authorization of deadly force in such searches has already proven to be standard procedure; and the FBI used the precise same language when they searched President Joe Biden's properties for his own cache of classified documents.
However, this has not stopped the former president from tripling down on the claim that Biden ordered the FBI to raid Mar-a-Lago with their fingers heavy on the trigger.
On his TruthSocial account, Trump blamed the FBI of having “locked & loaded ready to take me out & put my family in danger” and that the Justice Department “AUTHORIZED THE FBI TO USE DEADLY (LETHAL) FORCE."
“Deploying such knowingly false and inflammatory language in the combustible atmosphere that Trump has created poses an imminent danger to law enforcement that must be addressed before more violence occurs,” the Justice Department wrote in a recent court filing.
Trump’s lawyers defended the characterizations as “constitutionally protected campaign speech” and blame prosecutors for coming up short in showing they endangered agents.